Kingdom Hearts 1 12: The War is On
by Makori
Summary: What if someone had managed to reach Hollow Bastion before Sora? And what if, afterwards, they were his only hope? Later Romance, mostly focused on Sora x Kairi


((A/N: Okay, listen, this is my first Kingdom Hearts fic, and I'm sorry, but I'm so obsessed with war. After playing the first Kingdom Hearts, then the second, I began to wonder what would happen if others, equally strong as him, interfered enough to change the storyline. Also, don't expect me to update very fast. I hate school...ugh. One last thing: I apologise if this, in any way, seems to be monotone and obsessive with the little details, but trust me, the little details are as important as the big ones. This first chapter, as well as the second one, will both be prolouges. Then, the juice of the story will start to see out.))

**Kingdom Hearts 1 ½ : The War is On**

The ship began coasting down towards a rough landing pad, down at the bottom of a pit of waterfalls. This was the only land around aside from the castle itself, and landing there would be suicidal. The boy stood at the front of the ship, watching through the glass as the pilots began bringing it down. Well, actually, man would be better description. No one could be called a boy after what he went through. After what they all went through.

The pilots, one a young man, the other a young woman, carefully set the ship down on the lowest platform they could. Even though they attempted a soft landing, the craft still jolted. However, no one on board was shaken. They were all too used to it.

As the first young man walked out of the cockpit, another came down from their only gun turret, grinning like an idiot.

"We finally made it, huh Zack?"

The man named Zack scoffed, saying "Don't count your blessings until we're inside the castle, Jason. There's still an army of Heartless between us and Maleficent."

Jason simply kept smiling, sliding out of the turret all the way and saying "I tell you, this is going to be the fight of our lives!"

Zack rolled his eyes and muttered "Just as long as it's Maleficent's last one."

Jason didn't hear, however, merely pulling the radio link he had in his ear out to place on a charger on top of a workbench where the last of the people on board, a scrawny young man, was loading silver bullets into a magazine.

"You get 'em all, Reese?"

Reese looked up, then nodded, tossing the magazine to Zack, saying "Your's should have about twenty on it."

Zack nodded, then said "Alright. Well, Andy and Jay should be coming up soon. Best starting loading up."

Reese and Jason nodded, both somber. Reese walked over to another part of the ship. It really only had two rooms, the cockpit and the workshop, but they used both for every purpose: cooking, sleeping, planning, anything you could think of. There were five black lockers standing against the wall opposite the workbench, each about three feet wide and six feet tall. The faces were blank, but no one needed nametags to know where their equipment was. They could easily find it in a power outage.

Reese opened his locker, pulling out a flak vest. Sure, the Heartless didn't use guns or bullets, but it was all that they could get for body armor. In Reese's locker, a large, nozzle like gun was hung up next to the even larger, orange tanks it was connected to by a hose. One would've thought it a flamethrower except for the fact that the muzzle of the gun looked like a shark head, and the tanks were full of red liquid. Not gasoline, then, or even kerosene. No, this was Holy water. Corny? Yes. Strange? Yes. Ineffective against the Heartless? No. Somehow, and not even Reese knew, this gun was able to spit out the Holy Water in a dark red flame, acting as a flamethrower in the fact that it had the same effect.

After the tanks were strapped onto his back, Reese, pulled on a pair of thick, leather gloves. They'd never been able to get flameproof clothing, so these had to do. Holy Flame, as they called it, was just as dangerous as regular flame. After the gloves, Reese pulled on a thick, steel helmet, meant to deflect grenade fragments. This would have to do.

Andy and Jay still hadn't shown up, and Zack went back in to see what was going on while Jason got geared up. His equipment was slightly different than Reese's, but no less heavier. In fact, Jason had more to carry. A large, heavy backpack, like the ones with the frames that you would take on long hikes, was the first thing on after the flak vest. Inside were about sixty-thousand silver bullets, slipped into a long belt for a machine gun. A slit down at the bottom allowed the belt to be pulled out and into the large machine gun that Jason hefted and loaded, sliding the beginning of the belt into it and closing the heavy firearm.

While he had been doing this, Zack had come back in with Andy and Jay, and was currently saying "Okay, so how was I supposed to know that there was something wrong with it? C'mon, I'm no engineer."

Zack was technically the unelected and unwilling leader of the ragtag group, although he very rarely gave them orders or bossed them around. Rather, he would make it seem as though he was asking for a favor.

He opened his locker, slipping on the flak vest and helmet, but also pulling out a sub-machine gun. His vest was different from Jason's or Reese's in the fact that there were loops all over for ammunition clips. Currently, he had a clip loaded, while the twenty that Reese had mentioned filled his vest, making it slightly heavy and hard to move in.

With a shrug, Andy opened his locker, pulling out a vest similar to Zack's, but this time it was an assault rifle. Jay, meanwhile, had stripper clips in pockets for a sniper rifle. Every bullet they carried was silver. It was the only way they could do any injury to the demons that were called Heartless. And that was what they were. But, that's a story for another time.

Zack punched a slightly largish button, and the entire back wall, the one that wasn't occupied, began to fall, slowly outwards. Finally, it came to rest with a thud, creating a ramp for the five young adults. As each stepped down, they took one last look around, remembering the memories that this ship carried…and know that they would almost certainly never see it again. As soon as the last of them stepped off, the door began to rise again, until it shut with a dull thud. Each took a deep breath, then turned to the Rising Falls to behold what they had been working so hard to reach: the ruins of Hollow Bastion.

With a heart wrenching sigh, Zack stepped away from the ship, then knelt down to lift Jay, the lightest of them, up to the next platform. Once she was up, she turned around, flat on her stomach and pulled Andy up next. Then it was Zack, after he took a leap up to their outstretched hands. After him, Reese, and then Jason. It took all four of them to lift him and all that ammo up. And they repeated the process for the next platform. They had everything planned, after doing a recon from orbit. They'd seen the defenses, obstacles and so forth, and they had made plans for everything. Or, so they hoped.

Finally, they reached the final platform, and stopped, hesitating. There, before them, was a lift crystal, just waiting for the touch that would activate it and take them to the castle. From there, there was no going back. It was a somber moment. Then, as one, they all stepped forward, each stretching out a hand towards the crystal. As soon as it was touched, the lift materialized before them, pulling them all into the cage before setting off across the waters.

The wait was ecstasy. Each one knew that there would be almost no hope of surviving. This was a suicide mission, walking right into the house of the Heartless. And yet, SOMEONE had to do it. The fact that no one had yet was proof enough of that. There was only one goal: bring down Maleficent at all costs.

Ten seconds to impact.

Jason shifted the machine gun so that the barrel would be pointing straight ahead, his finger tensing on the trigger.

Eight seconds left.

Reese shifted over so that he was covering the right flank.

Five seconds.

Jay took the rear, checking the sights one final time.

Four seconds.

Andy and Zack took up a position on either side of Jason, careful to stay out of the machine gun's firing zone.

Three.

A Heartless looked up, spotting the approaching tram with glowing, emotionless eyes. It didn't raise an alarm. It was already passing the message telepathically to its comrades.

Two.

Another lift materialized behind a gate, bringing up reinforcements.

One.

A Heartless in thick battle armor, wielding a shield with a living predator head on it took up a position in front of the massive doors.

Impact.

The five materialized from the lift. And all Hell broke loose.

"NOW!" Zack screamed, his voice echoing through the still, chilly air.

With a low hum, the barrels of Jason's machine gun began rotating a second before the gun started firing. Several Heartless in between them and the doors were hit, but they didn't bleed. Instead, puffs of black smoke flew out of them, and parts of them were blown off. In essence, the bullets literally tore them apart. The reinforcements from the ice pits behind the gates began to advance on the gunner's flank, but before they could get very far, Reese stepped between them, squeezing the trigger of the Shark Gun, as they called it. A plume of blood red flame blossomed from the shark's mouth, incinerating the dark, shadowy beings. Jason kept his attention focused on the Heartless between him and his goal, the doors. Slowly, he began moving forward, still firing. Winged shapes began plummeting toward him from the castle's roof, but before the got very far, bullets from two lighter automatics began ripping them to shreds. As the winged terrors fell from the sky, Jay concentrated her fire on the roof, knocking more hostiles away before they could take flight. Only a few yards left to the doors, but that shield-bearer, that…Defender was still in their way. He managed to block the hail of machine gun fire, making the snarling predator face take the brunt of the attack. A small clank of metal on stone drew his attention behind him, however, right before a small metal ball that hadn't been there before exploded, knocking him forwards. His shield went up, into the air, and the machine gun did its work.

Silence once again.

Quickly, they all assembled into a new position, with the machine gun at the rear, sniper at the center, and assault and sub-machine guns on the flanks. Reese, meanwhile, had another job.

The young man reached into his flak vest, producing an explosive charge. In about thirty seconds, he had the thing attached to the doors, wired, and ready to blow in another ten. The squad quickly moved away, and turned back only when they heard the explosion.

This was the first big bump in their road to victory. The doors still held. The explosives may not have been powerful enough…but as the smoke cleared down near the bottom, they saw that it had been. A hole, barely large enough for one of them at a time, had appeared, and the longer they stood there, the longer the Heartless could muster reinforcements.

Right before they went in, Zack had one last thought that was supposed to be reassuring: _"At least, if we don't make it, whoever follows will have an easier time of getting in."_

If only he knew how right he was.

---------------------------------------

Back at the landing pad, the last echoes of the explosion were just melting away. Suddenly, three figures appeared, right next to the battered ship. Immediately, they began examining the ship.

After a few minutes, Donald said "Well, it doesn't seem to be a Heartless ship."

"Hyuck! But then, who could it belong to? We're the only ones aside from the Heartless who know where this place is!" said Goofy, scratching his head.

Sora turned away from them all, looking instead up at the castle. There was something very…familiar about this place.

"Why…why do I feel like I've got this funny…warm feeling right here?" He patted his chest, lightly.

Donald scoffed, turning away from the mysterious spacecraft and spluttering "Aw, you're just hungry."

Sora whirled on him, snarling "Hey! Cut it out! I'm serious!"

They were spared an argument, however, by a roar that echoed throughout the Rising Falls.


End file.
